fergie (fr ft.ge) chiefly British: a rambunctious misfit and renegade; a royal black sheep ((late 20th cent., origin obscure))
When they married, they seemed a match made in tabloid heaven: Andrew, the handsome playboy prince, and Sarah Ferguson, the red-headed minx who enjoyed slap and tickle and a good time. In contrast to the icy blondness of her sister-in-law Diana, the fun lover all of Britain came to know as Fergie was made up of earth colors and earthy views, promising a shot of red blood into thin royal veins. "She is the best thing in my life," Andrew often told friends, while his bride openly gushed, "I love his wit, his charm, his looks. I worship him."
That was before the children came. Before the royal duties and stately protocols began weighing as heavily as maternal pounds around the hips. Before the couple's enforced separations, then separations by choice: Fergie's impulsive flyaways to Alpine ski slopes and Mediterranean beaches, parties with dubious friends and displays of desperate merriment. Before Andrew began to slam her pals as "poncey philistines," and she to knock his sometimes boorish behavior as "terribly gauche."
Then last week, on the sixth anniversary of their engagement, Buckingham Palace made it coldly official: the Duke and Duchess of York's marriage was for practical purposes over. They had agreed to separate formally, with the option of divorce after two years. According to scornful palace officials, the woman increasingly mocked by the press as Freebie Fergie and Duchess Do-Little was "unsuitable for public life, for royal life."
The storm of headlines stole the thunder from the campaign for Britain's April 9 general election. That the split also upstaged news about the nation's deepest slump since World War II demonstrated one value of the House of Windsor today: as a distraction. At a time of anguish over Britain's national direction, a Hollywood-style cult of celebrity surrounding Queen Elizabeth II's offspring has endowed the royal clan with a more modern relevancy. The Queen's second son and his wayward wife provided everything in the way of gossip-page dramatics that their 1986 wedding seemed to herald. But in the end, the couple proved to be unsuitable for each other.
Though Britons relished Fergie's outgoing nature, they nonetheless expect members of the royal family to behave with dignity. The new duchess could never manage that for long. When the tabloids were not feasting on rumors of marital stresses between Diana and Prince Charles, heir to the throne, they were sniping at Andrew's spouse for her idleness, her "materialism" and, well, her behavior that was Not Quite His Class, Dear -- reproofs that were said to reflect Buckingham Palace's views. Britons high and low agreed: their revered sovereign and her family deserved better.
Eventually, the buzz saw wore down the polo manager's daughter. She was particularly upset when the Daily Mail in January splashed a scoop of her poolside unwinding in Morocco with Steve Wyatt, 38, bachelor son of a Texas oil tycoon. A cleaning woman had found snapshots of the scene in Wyatt's old flat in London and tattled the tale. Though Scotland Yard impounded the photos -- by all accounts they depicted only innocent fun -- Andrew reportedly hit the roof.